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Low frequency neuromuscular electrical stimulation applied to the bulbospongiosus muscle prolongs the ejaculation latency in a rat model

International Journal of Impotence Research volume 36, pages 261–264 (2024)Cite this article

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A Comment to this article was published on 15 August 2023

Abstract

Premature ejaculation (PE) is common, but its true pathophysiology is not clear, and treatments are limited. We aimed to investigate the effect of neuromuscular electrical stimulation applied in different modes and frequencies to the bulbospongiosus muscle on ejaculation parameters. In this study, 24 male Wistar albino rats were used. The rats were equally divided into three groups: control, high-frequency burst (HFB) and low-frequency (LF) (n = 8 each). Neuromuscular electrical stimulation was applied to the rats for 30 min. In the HFB group, this stimulation was applied in the burst mode at 80 Hz frequency using 200 microseconds (µs) transition time. In the LF group, manual stimulation was applied using a 2 Hz frequency and 200 µs transition time. Following the intraperitoneal administration of para-chloroamphetamine at a dose of 5 mg/kg, ejaculation time, increase in basal seminal vesicle pressure, seminal vesicle maximum pressure, number and interval time of seminal vesicle contractions and bulbospongiosus muscle electromyography activities were evaluated over 30 min. There was a significant difference between the groups in terms of ejaculation time (p = 0.002). The ejaculation times of the LF, HFB and control groups were 1344.71 ± 105.9, 908 ± 62 and 672 ± 149.7 s, respectively. The post hoc analysis revealed that the ejaculation time of the LF group was significantly longer than that of the HFB and control groups (p = 0.033 and p = 0.001, respectively). The remaining parameters did not differ significantly between the groups. The results showed that low-frequency (2 Hz) electrical stimulation applied to the male rats significantly prolonged the ejaculation time. It is thus considered that applying neuromuscular electrical stimulation before planned sexual activity can prevent the rhythmic contractions necessary for completing the ejaculatory process by maintaining subtetanic continuous contraction and prolonging the ejaculation time in patients with premature ejaculation complaints.

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Fig. 1: Electrical stimulation with TENS device.

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Data availability

The datasets generated and analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Urology, Balikesir University School of Medicine, Balikesir, Turkey

    Sezer Cizmeci & Sakir Ongun

  2. Department of Pharmacology, Dokuz Eylul University School of Medicine, Izmir, Turkey

    Ayberk Sarac, Eda Sel & Nergiz Durmus

  3. Department of Genomic Sciences and Molecular Biotechnology, Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Center, Izmir, Turkey

    Serhat Tozburun

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  1. Sezer Cizmeci
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  2. Sakir Ongun
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  6. Nergiz Durmus
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Contributions

Conceptualization: SO, SC. Experiment Execution: SC, AS, ES. Formal analysis: AS, ES. Methodology: SO, ND, ST. Funding acquisition: ND, SC. Writing–original draft: SO, SC. Writing–review & editing: SO, ND, ST.

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Correspondence to Sakir Ongun.

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Cizmeci, S., Ongun, S., Sarac, A. et al. Low frequency neuromuscular electrical stimulation applied to the bulbospongiosus muscle prolongs the ejaculation latency in a rat model. Int J Impot Res 36, 261–264 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41443-023-00678-5

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